Human Connection Freaks Me Out

[Flossy]

I really just want a good friend who can come over for coffee.

I do too. Sorry. :(

The glitch seems to be in the 'expectation' department. I don't want and can't handle a friend who has expectations of me and it seems hard to sort through. I have it in my husband, but that took 20 years to develop no expectations of each other and acceptance instead with endless communication. Who has time or energy to do that with a friend. Besides, I find females tend to not have the patience to sort through the communication.

Please don't blast me for saying that anyone. It's my personal experience of life. And not to do with my own behaviour in friendship either.

 

[Dana1010]

Yes, yes, yes. I have no idea where you live. But some of the best things I've done is seek out places and venues with lots of "weirdos." Usually they're places where artists and writers and intellectuals gather together in one form or another.

And what kinds of venues are those? One of the main reasons I've given up on being social is that every time I go out, I meet nothing but types--groups of people who are so similar to each other, you'd think they came off an assembly line. And don't get me started on the pretend, socially acceptable weirdness of the creative class. They are just another clique with a rule book that I haven't got time for at this stage in my life.

I'm stuck in this same place. I have a huge part of me that doesn't want to socialize at all, that can't feel anything but hate for people. But then Saturday night rolls around and I'm home writing on myPTSD, and it's like what's wrong with this picture? I think about one decent friend a had years ago (a weirdo) and I have conversations with her in my head about stuff that's happened lately. I remember laughing. I remember camaraderie. I just don't know where to find someone like her again or if I have the energy. I really don't know what I could bring to a friendship at this time. I'm a corpse.

I meet weirdos and talk with them, sometimes sit and have coffee with them, but there is no expectation of me and that works for me.

Where the hell do you live? If I tried to start a conversation with a stranger in a coffee shop in my town, they'd probably get up screaming for the manager, "Someone is attacking me! Help!"

 

[Flossy]

@Dana1010
Queensland Australia.
I could not stand to live anywhere that people would not tolerate a smile and a conversation. I need a village mentality. I think I would
** ing want to slap anyone who carried on like that.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Good thread. I sort of feel like I'm in a room with all of you. Oh, wait, I am in a room with all of you!! I am a weirdo. I've never fit in with any clique. I have too many unintegrated parts. In the course of 24 hours I can be in 30 different feeling states. Knowing this about myself has led me to be an introvert. I make friends, but don't know how to keep them. I wrack my brain wondering how to connect, but I had no attachment as a child to anyone loving or safe. It's a wonder I function at all.

 

[SeaQuel]

If I want to, I can connect, on a superficial level, with people of all stripes. I think I've said it before, but it's like being a chameleon. I'm not proud of this fact and it's draining as all get out. I'm trying to be and find my authentic self.

 

[Flossy]

@KawnYingirl and @DancingBull and all others.

I don't really see it as a that much of a flaw, really. I do look at other women sitting having coffee with three or four other women in amazement. I just cannot believe that they are all on the same page. I don't think they are. I think a lot of people go around in total denial of the aspects of their "friends" that people like us find unable to be around.

I think trauma has caused us to want to be authentic. I also think we become traumatised because we are sensitive and authentic more than a lot of the rest of the population.

To be blunt, I think there are a lot of a..holes in this world, male and female. I also think they gather people around them for their own purposes and agendas and do not back away if there is a lack of compatibility. I believe they choose to stay in the friendship and get what suits them out of it.

None of us seem to do that. That says something that is not at all related to us being unable to have friendships. I think it could be that we use intuition, awareness, alertness to further abuse or hurt. I think "others" take what they can, enjoy it and get annoyed or have a whinge about it.

We don't have the energy for the getting annoyed or whinging, and we dont want to risk that this person lacks empathy or authenticity.

So we have to be aware when we find others like us and find ways to communicate. I recently met a girl at a coffee shop and she does not take medication. I do.

We began emailing. After a short while, I said her outpouring of painful thoughts was triggering me and that her thoughts were PTSD talking and I did it with kindness. We agreed that we would not email any more but would have a big chat if/when we see each other out.

I feel I grew up a little bit more from how I handled it and her feelings were not hurt. We respected each other's choices regarding medication.

 

[Dana1010]

I think trauma has caused us to want to be authentic.

I think this is true and have been trying to understand what it is about PTSD that makes inauthenticity so unbearable. I ran about like the white rabbit for years trying to be good enough for people, trying to find out what it was they were buying from those people they surrounded themselves with and sell it to them. PTSD hit and I collapsed. I can't do it anymore. That's the whole problem with friendship for me now. If I can't be authentic with people, it's not worth the effort. They can take me or leave me. This is the only place I know where I can be real.

 

[Chava]

I wrack my brain wondering how to connect, but I had no attachment as a child to anyone loving or safe. It's a wonder I function at all.

What do you connect to? You are a spiritual person, right? I wonder too how I have survived. But I've had some really lovely connections to grandparents (now gone) and to music and nature. Nature is the best...feels like we can commune and support each other, like the earth can hold and protect me.

I think trauma has caused us to want to be authentic. I also think we become traumatised because we are sensitive and authentic more than a lot of the rest of the population.

I agree with this....early on I was digging for meaning and my "self". If it didn't fit, it was not worth my energy, even if it was popular. I've always been quite a dork. I have had to battle self-hatred for various reasons, but I never regret being my weird self.

@KwanYingirl or any of you, have you read "Healing Developmental Trauma"? It perfectly describes my sort of disconnection (and this really never happens) but also feels hopeful because we are working on this, in similar ways, in therapy. Even if I can't fix everything I can understand it better and decide what might be worth carefully challenging. I'm clueless in regards to connection, usually ambivalent, and yet isolated in unhealthy ways too often. But we are working on the connection stuff in therapy. I hope these very ancient neuro patterns can be rewired into more connective experience. My therapist doesn't freak me out, so it's a good way to work on it. Hard enough to even look at her though.

 

[Flossy]

I think this is true and have been trying to understand what it is about PTSD that makes inauthenticity so unbearable.

I think it's because we have been 'messed with" in our heads/ fed incorrect information / been abused by Narcissists in our family of origins / lied to / lied about / not taught that other humans are real, truthful, trustworthy and care about us. We have learned this is so.

We know we are not like this. We know we can't be the only ones. We need to be authentic, so why the hell would we risk an unauthentic person in our lives.

We are still trying to learn how to be humans. How to be grownups. If someone who is less than authentic gets the chance to be around us we may pick up behaviours or thoughts from them to add to our learning. We can't afford to add flawed learning into our self-schoolling on how to be a human and a grownup. It's too bloody hard. We need it to be easier, so we must have authentic people in our lives and get good examples, good habits and healthy thinking processes as our examples.

We belong in a village. I wish there was such a village. There's lots of us on here. There's got to be some in our community. I know two women now who go to my coffee shop who both have PTSD and one other one. Today I PM'd one on FB and said if she ever feels like cofffee to message me. No pressure and its okay if doing that doesnt fit with her to say so. Because I can't bear to be booked ahead either. Just a spur of the moment invite with no expectations of it happening. She is authentic.

Who knows, I might just get to have a coffee with a friend and not have to put that word into brackets.

 

[KwanYingirl]

@Chava I have a very strong connection to my children. Nature is a big part of me, but I'm afraid to walk in the woods alone (scene of a crime). Enjoying being close to the ocean. And my clients. They eventually get done, but while we are together it really is a mutual respect that we share and is a huge source of self esteem. My music soothes me yet I've always been too shy to play out with others.

 

[KwanYingirl]

Here's a quote from Liuise Erdrich:

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on Earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

 

[Flossy]

I would love to walk in the woods too, but am too afraid. I even bought myself a can of capsicum spray from the net, but I am still too scared. I love the moon, so when it is full moon, sometimes I go outside and lie down on the concrete path in my yard and look at the sky. That's as free as I am capable of being, while I really, really want is to go to a stream with a bunch of women and play in the water, run around in the nuddy, build a fire and tell stories and brush each other's hair. I long for that. But the next thought is that someone might hit on me (I am 61 and carrying 15kilos of cake. Who am I kidding?) or there might be a boogyman in the dark who will stab us. Jeez.